


i just wanted to hear your voice

by rarmaster



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: M/M, MGS4, when this happened during the battle i yelled so loud because! rude!!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-09
Updated: 2017-10-09
Packaged: 2019-01-15 02:51:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12312387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rarmaster/pseuds/rarmaster
Summary: Snake calls his husband after a particularly stressful battle with Laughing Octopus.





	i just wanted to hear your voice

Once Laughing Octopus was dead, Snake collapsed against the nearest wall of the ruined lab, wanting a second just to _breathe._ That battle had been… more stressful than most, thanks to Laughing Octopus’s shitty mind games. It’d probably been a few minutes now, and he’d had a lot of other things to think about, but—

He could still hear the cruel lilt in Otacon’s voice, the mocking laughter.

Snake squeezed his eyes shut and tried to put the memory out of his mind. He was fine. It was over. He ran a hand over his face and forced air in and out of his tired, aching lungs. Naomi. He should go after Naomi…

His codec rang.

Snake fumbled to hit answer automatically, perking up a little bit. “Yeah?”

“Yo, Snake! Looking good today!” Drebin’s voice. Immediately Snake’s mood soured.

“Drebin…” he grumbled. Of course, he shouldn’t have been surprised. More than one person in the world had his codec number. It was just, there was only one voice he cared to hear right now, and it certainly wasn’t Drebin’s.

He listened politely to Drebin for a while, interspacing with vague “uh-huhs” every few seconds. Then Drebin stopped talking about armor, and started talking about Laughing Octopus, and… Snake slowly scowled as he realized what was going on. It wasn’t too long before he decided he didn’t give a shit. He’d listened to enough tragic backstories for one lifetime. Sure, it was sad, and he felt sorry for this poor girl. But also, she was an asshole to him, and he just wanted to hear his husband’s voice, hear it shaped into laughter that wasn’t cruel.

“Hey, Drebin,” he interrupted. “I’d love to hear this—” (No, he would not.) “—but it looks like I’m getting a call from my husband. I better take it.”

He hung up on Drebin before Drebin could protest.

Snake let out a breath, then tapped a familiar number into his codec, a number he could tap out in his sleep…

“Snake!!” came Otacon’s voice. He sounded so joyful and relieved that already some of the anxieties weighing on Snake’s shoulders started to melt. “Oh thank god, Laughing Octopus jammed our transmission there for a minute—Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” Snake answered. His voice cracked around the word, though, and he silently cursed himself. Was it his nerves, or his aging body? Neither option was comforting. He leaned his head back against the wall behind him, closing his eyes. “Just… one hell of a battle…”

“She’s gone, then?”

“Yeah.”

There was silence for a moment, the weighty kind of silence that often came before Otacon said something he wasn’t sure about, or said something he thought he might regret.

“Well… if you think you’re doing okay, Snake, then shouldn’t you start after Naomi?” Otacon said. All the hesitance for that? Snake could’ve laughed, if only he didn’t currently feel like shit. (Again, was that nerves, or his dying body? He didn’t like either option.) “If- If you sit around too long, Naomi will—”

“I know, I know,” Snake interrupted. He let out a breath that fell somewhere between annoyed and tired. “Just… give me a few minutes, woulda?”

He didn’t want to go anywhere just yet. Sure, focusing on Naomi and the mission would get his mind off of the more terrible things that bubbled in the back of it, but…

“Snake?” Otacon pressed, concerned.

“What?” Snake answered, annoyed.

“Are you… _sure_ you’re alright? You sound a little shaken up.”

Snake clenched his jaw and grumbled. He didn’t want to talk about it, didn’t want to remember it, but—the memories flashed through his mind. The illusion he knew better than to trust, yet followed anyway. The sting of a flashbang. Otacon’s voice laughing; ‘ _Not very smart, are we?’_

Snake forced his eyes open, sharply turning his head to the side. He choked on the air that tried to enter his lungs, chest constricting with a terrible fear and pain. He cursed himself again. He was fine. It was just a memory. It was just a…

“Snake! _Snake_!?” Otacon’s sharp concern cut through the images and lingering laughter.

Snake shook his head. “I… just…” he rasped. It was still hard to breathe. “I wanted to hear your voice, Otacon.”

 _His_ voice, not that twisted imitation of it created by a madwoman.

“Oh,” Otacon said, and then was silent for a solid three seconds. After that, he coughed awkwardly. “Well, you could always listen to me talk while you get moving. Come on, I know you’ll regret it if you let Naomi get away. Don’t make send Mk. II over there—”

Snake laughed weakly. “I’ll get up in a minute, I promise,” he said.

“Mmhmm,” Otacon didn’t sound like he believed it, and started typing furiously on his computer. About to send Mk. II over? Snake wasn’t sure what the little robot could do, but fine, let Otacon try. (It’d be nice to see Otacon’s face, anyway.)

Snake’s codec beeped, indicating he had another call. Cambell, wanting to tell him to get off his ass and get moving? Drebin, eager to talk more about things he didn’t care about? Snake didn’t want to listen to either of them, so he ignored it.

“Anyway, Otacon,” he said. He wasn’t entirely sure what he wanted to say yet, but the silence just left room for those terrible memories to breed, so he spoke to fill it. “Can you, uh—”

A mere second after Snake’s codec stopped beeping, Otacon’s beeped on the other end of the line. Snake shut his mouth, scowling again.

“Oh, weird, it’s Rosemary?” Otacon said after a moment.

Figured. “Bet she just tried to call me,” Snake muttered.

“You didn’t answer?” Otacon asked. He seemed surprised.

“Didn’t want to hang up on you,” Snake said. He hoped Otacon wouldn’t remember that it was definitely possible to hold two codec conversations at once.

“Aww,” Otacon said, sounding fond. He dragged out the sound for a few seconds, and a warmth beat hard in Snake’s chest. “Anyway, I should probably answer her, huh?”

“You don’t have to,” Snake began, because Rosemary was still pretty low on the list of people he wanted to talk to right now. Higher than Drebin, but, lower than Otacon. Then again, _everyone_ was significantly lower than Otacon on the people-Snake-wanted-to-talk-to-right-now list.

“It could be important,” Otacon argued.

Snake didn’t get the chance to protest any further, because after a half-second, Rosemary’s voice came through the codec. It was slightly distorted, since he was hearing it through Otacon’s speakers, but there nonetheless.

“Hey, Otacon,” Rosemary said. Her voice was polite enough, but then, it always was. Snake wondered if it came with being a psychiatrist.

“Hey Rosemary,” Otacon answered. “Is… something wrong?”

“Snake just didn’t answer my call, is all…”

“Said he didn’t wanna hang up on me, haha!” Otacon laughed. It was awkward, as all his laughs were, but it was also brimming with fondness, and… _that._ That was the laugh Snake wanted engraved on his mind.

“Oh!” Rosemary’s voice pitched upwards with surprise and curiosity. “Have you got him on the line right now, Otacon? Can he hear me?”

Snake grumbled, mood souring a little. The grumble gave him away, but if it hadn’t, Otacon would have, so it didn’t really matter.

“Listen, Snake,” Rosemary began.

“Can’t a guy talk to his husband in peace?” Snake sighed, shaking his head a little in disbelief. He thought he heard Otacon laugh fondly under the next thing Rosemary said.

“Snake, we need to have a conversation about your mental state,” Rosemary insisted, sharp enough to make Snake flinch. “Honestly, you if you could see what your heartrate looks like now… I’m amazed you aren’t having a panic attack! We should really do something about—”

“What do you think I was _trying_ to do?” Snake cut in.

Rosemary fell silent, and stayed that way for a few moments.

“Oh,” Otacon laughed, sounding surprised and a little touched.

“ _Oh,_ ” Rosemary said, the word quiet, understanding.

“Can I please talk to Otacon now?” Snake asked, annoyed that he even had to.

Rosemary hesitated for a long second, but: “Well, yes, I suppose you can,” she relented. “It’s just… Otacon isn’t exactly a trained professional…”

“Hey, that’s alright!” Otacon chimed in, the words bright. “After all, I am a _Snake_ professional!” Snake could almost see the dopey grin on his face.

“I… I can’t believe you,” Rosemary said. She seemed at a loss for words. Otacon tended to do that to people. “Alright. I’m going! You two just… you know. Help him figure it out, Otacon.”

“You got it!” Otacon told her, and then Rosemary was gone.

Snake took a deep breath, dreading the question that was coming. He hoped Otacon wouldn’t ask, even though he knew Otacon would.

“What’s got you so worked up, anyway?”

Yup. There it was.

But…

Snake cherished the softness, the gentleness of the question, cherished the concern in Otacon’s voice. He still didn’t want to talk about it, because the sharpness of the moment was finally starting to fade, but he could appreciate this. He could relax into it, let Otacon’s concern wrap around him like a warm blanket.

“Don’t really wanna talk about it,” he mumbled. It didn’t come out as gruff as he’d planned it to, but maybe that was for the better.

Otacon was silent for a long moment. “Well, I suppose you don’t have to,” he relented finally, relented where Rosemary wouldn’t have. “But Rosemary’s right. You can’t continue the mission in this state! So… well, what is it I can do for you, Snake? You called me for a reason, didn’t you?”

“Just… talk for a little bit, would you? I want to hear your voice,” Snake said.

Sure, he understood the need to talk through his problems every now and then, but right now? That wasn’t what he needed. He knew what had happened was just smoke and mirrors—fake, even if painful. He didn’t need to talk about it. He just needed a little something to help him remember what was real.

“R- Really?” Otacon asked, surprised laughter making his voice catch. “That’s it?”

“It’s soothing,” Snake answered, honestly.

Otacon made a few flustered noises, and then: “Well! I- um. Okay!” Despite the confidence in his tone, he went silent for a few seconds. When he spoke again, it was in an embarrassed whisper. “I don’t know what to talk about?”

Snake laughed.

“Anything’s fine, Otacon.”

“Okay. Okay, um…”

There was a lapse of silence again, this one filled with soft clicks of the computer as Otacon did… something. Likely just something to occupy his hands as he got his thoughts together. That was how Otacon worked.

“Okay. Well, the weather’s great up here, like always,” Otacon said. “Sunny’s practicing her eggs, like always. Last batch came out better than usual, actually!” He laughed nervously. “And um… Oh! I haven’t been able to watch the last three episodes of the KagePro anime, because, well, obviously we’re busy, but! Let me tell you! Based on the synopses I’ve read, they REALLY messed this one up!! It isn’t anything like—”

He kept going, and Snake let the sound roll over him, soaking it in. A fond smile played on his lips. This… _This_ was the man he loved.


End file.
